Redbaiting and the movement
Divide and conquer isn't working
By Deirdre Griswold
There has been a new flurry of broadcasts and articles in
the leading media outlets of the capitalist establishment
trying to divide and weaken the burgeoning anti-war movement.
They are happening at the very moment that it is taking on
enormous momentum and becoming a factor that even the Bush
administration has to take into consideration, as it moves
ahead with its criminal plans to attack Iraq.
The attacks are directed at the ANSWER coalition especially,
which has organized the biggest anti-war protests since the
Vietnam movement. ANSWER, which is made up of many very active
groups in the areas of international solidarity and social
justice, is being slandered as nothing but a "front" for
Workers World Party. This denies the fact that many progressive
currents with different political outlooks can come together on
a principled basis--against the war, for instance--while
maintaining their independence and integrity.
It is just a repeat of the old tactic of redbaiting that was
used to break up the progressive movement and a lot of unions
in the 1950s.
Workers World itself is being misrepresented as "Stalinist"
and caricatured as mindless supporters of dictators around the
world.
What seems to bother the pundits most is Workers World's
refusal to give any credence to the U.S. imperialist
government's claim that its interventions around the world are
aimed at spreading democracy and development, or at least at
overthrowing bloody and dangerous dictatorships. Workers World
does not agree with all the political positions of every regime
whose sovereignty and resources are under attack by
imperialism. But it knows that an imperialist takeover is never
the solution; that the installation of a neocolonial puppet
regime, no matter how disguised and sanitized, is the death of
self-determination and any genuine democracy for the people. It
is up to the people of these countries, not the interventionist
empire builders, to determine what kind of government they want
and who should be their leaders.
Those who are attacking WW have distorted this position,
equating it with ideological servility to all the policies of
the regimes and parties in question. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Workers World has always had an independent,
critical approach to the world struggle based on its
understanding of revolutionary working class politics.
Here are some examples of the media coverage.
A column by Michael Kelly, dripping with venom and called
"March ing with Stalinists," appeared in the Jan. 22 Washington
Post. It actually was a right-wing attack on a New York Times
editorial about the huge Jan. 18 anti-war mobilizations, called
"A Stirring in the Nation." Kelly was furious at the Times for
not having redbaited the ANSWER coalition, the organizer of the
protests, and for not dissing Workers World Party in the
editorial.
The Times was quick to seek forgiveness. It responded with
an article by Lynette Clemetson on Jan. 24 called "Some War
Protesters Uneasy with Others," in which she described Workers
World as a "radical Socialist group with roots in the
Stalin-era Soviet Union." (Not true.)
This article was very tricky because it pretended to be in
sympathy with the anti-war movement, which it presented as
being diminished by radicals in positions of leadership,
especially from Workers World Party. In order to argue this
point, it had to lie about the size of the Jan. 18 protests in
Washington and San Francisco, saying that "tens of thousands"
attended. This is off by a factor of 10. Even the San Francisco
police now admit the protest there was at least 150,000, and
estimates of the crowd in Washington range up to half a
million.
In fact, the International ANSWER coalition has organized
what even these newspapers admit are the largest demonstrations
to date against the Iraq war and the biggest anti-war protests
since Vietnam. It has done so by addressing all the issues
related to the Iraq war--such as U.S. aggression in other parts
of the world, racism at home, and imperialist militarism's
disastrous economic effects on the workers here.
The Times, pretending to speak in the name of others in the
movement, says this diminishes the anti-war forces, who only
want to focus on Iraq. But the newspaper has to lie about the
numbers to make this argument.
Fortunately, many people both inside and outside of the
ANSWER coalition have made public statements rejecting the
redbaiting and the attempts to divide the movement.
The Times and the Washington Post, of course, do not speak
for the movement. They have always been tribunes for the ruling
establishment in this country. And this establishment has,
until now, given the war its full endorsement. That could
change as the anti-war movement around the world grows more
powerful and the economic situation at home worsens, especially
if the war drags on. But for now there's no question that these
powerful interests want to divide and weaken the movement, not
help it along by offering friendly advice on tactics.
It is interesting that a number of these attacks ridicule
the reading of messages from Mumia Abu-Jamal at the protests.
Mumia is reviled here, by the police especially, but he is
recognized in the rest of the world as a U.S. political
prisoner as well as an eloquent voice against the war from the
Black community.
Despite the endless, foaming-at-the-mouth propaganda, the
majority in this new movement are not going to bed at night
worrying about Korea or Iraq or Cuba or Grenada or any other
country ringed by U.S. nukes and troops. No, they are worried
about George Bush and his power-drunk associates. They are
worried about the Weapons of Mass Destruction of the Pentagon,
and the dangerous propensities of this capitalist superpower as
the economy worldwide begins to contract.
Reprinted from the Feb. 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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